“PERIYAR AND AMBEDKAR THOUGHT ON THE SAME LINES”

Citing excerpts from the speeches of B.R. Ambedkar and Thanthai Periyar on social inequalities, DMK Rajya Sabha member Tiruchi Siva said both of them thought on the same lines.

Participating in the debate of Constitution Day and the contribution of Ambedkar in the House on December 1, he said:

Excerpts of the speech

The new liberal policies have increased the higher levels of inequalities. It has caused depression. It has caused frustration in the minds of the ordinary people. The Guardian Journal which comes from London has recently invoked the name of Dr. Ambedkar. It has quoted what Dr. Ambedkar has said, “How long shall we continue to deny the equality in our social and economic life?….

The inequalities which he concentrated upon… He fought against creed and caste. I am proud to say I am from the DMK Party. The Dravidian Movement, is today a symbol of political organization. It has done a lot for the society. But for Periyar, but for Anna, but for Kalaignar, we would not have been here. Social justice is the core thread of our movement. Ambedkar and Thanthai Periyar thought on the same lines. Ambedkar said, “We have got political equality but not social equaIity.” And that is what Periyar had also said, and I quote, “What do we get through religion? What do we get through God? What have we got through Independence when we are being suppressed through one thing or the other?”

When Dr. Ambedkar had moved the Hindu Code Bill, there was opposition. He had quoted the scriptures and asked, “When your own scriptures ask you to give property rights to women, then, why do you deny it to them?” Ambedkar had said that in his later days. In the same way, in 1929 itself, Thanthai Periyar, in the first Self Respect Conference of Madras Presidency had passed a resolution that women must be given ancestral property rights. In 1989, when our leader, Dr. Kalaignar, was the Chief Minister, he had brought forth legislation for giving property rights to women. Sir, we don’t pay just lip sympathy. We are, with our blood and soul, attached to these policies.